Recently, various types of PCs such as desktop computers and notebook personal computers are widely used. Further, recently, an attempt is made to enhance the performance of a graphics processing unit (GPU) and, for example, game software that provides a high-quality image utilizing a three-dimensional image by means of a PC, for example.
The resource management of a PC is made by use of an operating system (OS). Some OSs include a function of monitoring the operation condition of preset software executed on the PC and recovering software in which the occurrence of a bug is detected when detecting that a bug occurs in the software as one part of the resource management and initializing. As one method for detecting the occurrence of a bug, a timeout process is well known. To date, various mechanisms for preventing the timeout process from being performed at a time unsuitable for the user have been proposed (for example, see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2005-37977).
For example, Microsoft Windows (registered trademark) Vista includes a timeout detection and recovery (TDR) function. The TDR function is designed to perform one type of timeout process of transmitting a message for confirming normal operation to a display driver at regular intervals and initializing the display driver to recover when a response to the message is not issued. Thus, automatic return when the screen is “frozen” is realized.
The performance of PCs greatly varies according to the grade of the central processing unit (CPU), GPU and the like. In spite of this fact, generation intervals of TDR are generally set at the same value (time) for the respective PCs. Therefore, if game software that provides a high-quality screen on a PC with low performance is executed, the display driver, which is in a busy state, cannot respond to the TDR message and erroneously determines that a bug has occurred. As a result, there occurs a problem that the display driver is initialized and recovered. That is, a problem that, the user cannot continuously execute desired game software on a low-performance PC due to the TDR function has newly occurred.